Four Shoulders to Carry the World
by Spazzcat-Katori
Summary: Kuron was intended to be a replacement for Shiro, and the two are alike in all the ways that matter: determined to protect, unwilling to die, and endlessly forgiving. So when Kuron gives up his body to his original self, Shiro promises that somehow, someway, he'll help his brother live again too. But neither of them could have known just how and when he would fulfill that promise.


_I don't want to die._

It's less a fully-formed thought and more of a feeling, flowing between them in this place where there are no secrets, not from themselves and not from each other. Just a deep, burning fear from the Other struggling against Him in this non-space where there isn't enough room for them both. And He wants to give way, because He doesn't want to feel that fear, to cause it, and He knows the Other can feel that desire, but His own fear of death is just as deep to the core of His soul and He knows the Other can feel that too. And He cannot lose this fight. His family is waiting.

The Other pulls back as His thought washes over them, and He feels their guilt and shame in return. A deep despair, a feeling of deserving this fate for shed blood and cruel words and betrayal that nearly killed the people He/the Other/they love most.

A retreat. A loosening of grip. A trembling acceptance of the inevitable abyss.

Rejection of that necessity surges, and shock echoes back.

A conversation in emotions is had in the space between faltering heartbeats. Guilt. Forgiveness. Shame. Understanding. Sorrow. A search for solution. An awareness of necessity.

A promise.

If one has been given a new body, the other one can be too. It may take time, to find a place. But He will. If it takes His second lifetime.

Surprise. Gratitude. Love. Exhaustion.

 _Go. They're waiting for you._

Shiro wakes in a body that is/was not his, to his family gathered around him, and the soul of a brother barely a year old and already scarred and broken nestled safe against his heart.

He tells no one about his promise. But Shiro does not forget.

0000000

The new threat is deadly and Voltron is falling and the IGF-Atlas is just not enough. Shiro can only watch helplessly, hands clenched to white-knuckled fists on the console, with alarms and shouting ringing in his ears as his friends, his family, his world stand on the brink.

He can feel the ship, through his arm to the main crystal to veins of quintessence power running from one end to the other. She's damaged, listing. She's given him all she has.

But he can't shake the feeling she could do more.

A thought surfaces. It's wild, bizarre. He has no idea what it would even accomplish but there's a feeling in his gut and he cannot just stand back and do nothing. And he knows, with the certainty with which he knows himself, that the Other will feel the same.

He never counted on not having Allura on hand for this, but he remembers having his soul ripped from his resting place twice, by the Black Lion in death and Allura for life and he thinks he understands. He tunes out the chaos, the sight of the monster ready to strike a mortal blow, and dives.

Finds the not-space inside him. Finds the soul of the Other.

A conversation in impressions in the space between two breaths. Desperation. Desire to help. Suggestion. Surprise. Apprehension. Acceptance.

A mutual need to protect that runs to the core of them both, so fundamental to their nature that Haggar could never have excised it without turning her weapon as fragile as glass.

Shiro grasps his brother's soul, bathes it once more in love, and pulls.

He opens his eyes. His heart pulses in his chest. Just once. Waiting.

Then power surges through the Atlas, silencing alarms in a wave from bow to stern. The engines roar and Shiro has a distant impression of someone sliding into a new set of clothes. And a laugh as delighted as his own when the Atlas first took flight.

 _Hang on tight_ , he feels more than hears. _This baby's got_ potential _._

Shiro grins. He knew it.

Metal shifts with a noise like thunder and everyone on board hangs on tight. Through the crystals, through his brother, Shiro can feel the new shape taking form, and can only watch in awe and hope.

The shifting ends. Atlas stands tall, a Shiro at its head and another in its soul. The thought flows through the soul-crystal link, more felt than heard with no secrets between them and their desires in accord as they stare down the machine that would threaten those they love.

 _Let's go protect our world._


End file.
